• Politics is ideas. The best politicians have or steal them. The most one can hope is that they acknowledge the debt. Thus many ears pricked up during that final Jeremy Paxman interview with the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, on Wednesday. After jointly struggling on a tandem, the two talked about London's cycle-hire scheme, popularly known as Boris bikes. They weren't even your idea, said Paxman. Ah, but a Johnson invented the bicycle, said the mayor, referring to the pioneering Dennis Johnson. What he clearly did not want to say was that the bike plan was part of the handover from his predecessor, Ken Livingstone. In 2007, after visiting the mayor of Paris – where the Vélib cycle-hire scheme was already popular – Livingstone began the process of bringing them to London. His aides travelled to Paris, as did Jenny (now Baroness) Jones, the Green party peer who was his cycling adviser. She recalls: "The only change he made was that instead of the Paris bikes, Boris bought the heavy ugly ones from Montreal" – because he was frightened people might steal them. Success has many fathers, but sometimes the wrong name creeps on to the birth certificate.

• Yes, it is all about ideas. Airports commission chair Sir Howard Davies knows that. Addressing an event to consider airports and growth, he was asked where the idea for the gathering came from. "It came out of a lunch with Boris where he made a good point," said Davies. "I need to get the surprise out of my voice, I'm sure he's made others, I just can't think of any." Davies shouldn't be so hard on himself.

• Though Gordon Brown's public appearances remain few and fleeting, he continues to address the public via the third-party route that is the stage play The Confessions of Gordon Brown. And this provides the material for much wider discussion. On Wednesday, John Prescott was the star turn at the post-show debate. He said the play brilliantly captured Brown's resentment at being overtaken by Blair. He also recalled again one of the reconciliation dinners he brokered between the two in his Admiralty Arch grace-and-favour apartment. Brown arrived grumpy (but then, as Prescott observed, "Let's face it, he's always a bit grumpy"), sat down and immediately complained about the chair. "It's too low," he said. "I don't like to be looked down on." No problem, replied Prescott. "With my 10 years as a waiter I know how to fix that." Prescott then turned to Blair and asked. "What about your chair, Tony?" It's fine, said Blair. "I am quite used to Gordon looking down on me all the time."

• A time for trust and forbearance among the Greens. Party leader Natalie Bennett has raised hackles by backing a new school in north London. It is planned as a free school. The Green party doesn't approve of free schools. So Bennett returned from holiday this week to discover much disgruntled activity on the party's social media and a requirement that she explain herself. Accepting the Diary as the highest authority, she explained her thinking to us. It may be planned as a free school now, said Bennett, but it won't happen before the next election – and with Michael Gove gone, it probably won't emerge as a free school at all. Well, she convinced us. But that's the easy bit.

• Finally, another day, another intelligence scare driven by officials aggrieved at whistleblower Edward Snowden. First this week it was Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, Britain's top anti-terrorist police officer, raising again the spectre of intelligence services mortally wounded by Snowden's revelations. Then it was Iain Lobban, the outgoing head of GCHQ. Doubtless Snowden caused reflection and perhaps some change of strategy. But is it true that all the bad guys have gone to ground? Hardly. This week, Radio 4's Today programme put to Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, a former chair of the joint intelligence committee, the notion that the intelligence services struggle to find young British jihadists returning from Syria. "Our ability to track what is going on is infinitely greater than it was post-9/11," she said. Hardly the picture of calamity being peddled elsewhere.